Consciously Connected to Moving Through Loneliness in Business Through Collaboration, Connection and Community

Loneliness in business is something I don't think is spoken about enough. The truth is, we are tribe-based beings and we need a connection to thrive. Operating in your business is no different. Too often I see business owners attempt to do everything solo (myself included!) and I think it's time we work towards a more collaborative way of working.... which is what I'm moving towards in my own business.

In this episode I dive into: 
- why I've been feeling lonely in business
- how I plan to move forward in a more collaborative way
- what you can do to feel more supported in business

If you'd love to have a chat, get in touch with me over on Instagram:

www.instagram.com/consciouscreatorco_

Transcript

Hi, I'm Emma, and you're listening to the consciously connected podcast, a space where I chat to creators, and quite often to myself around forming a connection with me to connect to our outer worlds more clearly. I myself am a yoga teacher, and our Vedic practitioner, and a womb science facilitator. Combined, this was five years in marketing. And you have me trying to draw both of my worlds together to help creators create consciously. If this is something that you're interested in learning more about, you can find me over at conscious creative co underscore on Instagram. For now, let's get on with the show. Hi, and welcome back to another episode. I'm so excited to sit down today, with this really strong sensation of a creative spark. I have spent a few days honestly not really leaving the house, I've been away a lot, came on my bleed and just wanted to cocoon and Hibernate. And I've been so grateful that it's been really cloudy in the UK, to give me that full permission slip to do that, because I definitely struggle when the sun is out which I'm sure many people who live in the UK and know how rare The sunshine is resonate with. But after those few restful days, I saw like a little glimmer of sunshine this morning. And I pulled my coffee into my takeaway cup. And I just ran down to the ocean. And I'm really lucky, I'm literally a minute, I can see it from my window rundown. And being that energy being that Seabreeze listen to the sound of the waves go and put my feet in the sand, which I just find so so grounding. And whilst I was there, having not really felt creative for the past few days, I had this real strong sense of vision around my business, and how the name of it suggests conscious creator CO which I never really specified what the code meant. It's quite obvious about the conscious being conscious awareness in our world, the creation being the expression of that. But the code was just kind of stuck on the end or so it seemed. But the reason that I put that code there was actually really important. And it is because when I had my human design reading done, so much of my chart showed that yes, creation is literally woven through pretty much every inch of my chart. But so is collaboration. And when I created the vision for this business, bringing people together was such a huge, huge part of that. And at the time, I was heavily invested in teaching yoga, I was holding bi weekly women's circles in person, I was holding yoga brunches. I was just holding a lot of events, some online to that really bought creatives together. And I loved it. I don't think I've ever felt so lit up. So in flow, so in purpose as I was in those moments, but I have to be really honest, I very much got swept up into the business world. And how none of that was really bringing me income. And I just did it for the love of it. The pure pure love it was after locked down, we'd all been shut away isolated, My only agenda was just to bring people together. There were times when I held events, and I actually was at a loss and I just didn't care. I really, really just didn't care, which is so beautiful. And it's also a narrative we see quite a lot in the feminine business space, but it was also not sustainable at all. Because I had to afford to live. I had to afford the lifestyle that I wanted to live as well. And that wasn't possible in that sense. And so I kind of abandoned that. And I still try to keep the collaboration piece within my business, like through things like my podcast and holding masterclasses in group programmes and things like that. But lately, it just seems to have dropped off a little bit. And to be really honest, I feel a little lonely in my work. I used to go to a cowork space down here but I just wasn't really resonating with it. The atmosphere was a little off. I found myself really distracted. I wasn't in the kind of energy I wanted. In, I go to cafes quite a lot. And I have co work days with some friends. And I also have a lot of calls in my business, which feels really collaborative. And I've started to notice that when I have a lot of calls, when I make the effort to go and do co work days and collaboration days, I feel so different. I feel inspired, I feel motivated, I feel really creative. And that is definitely definitely something that I've not been feeling enough of lately in my business. And I wanted to speak on this because I think loneliness, when you're self employed, is something that I don't see a lot of people shining light on. But it's definitely been a part of my narrative. I live alone. And when I am copywriting or I'm creating something quite often I need to be in a quiet space because I get distracted so easily. I'm very vata airy energy, I'll just flow with whatever's happening. But that also means that if I don't make a really conscious effort to message friends and say, Can we go for a coffee, can you pop over for a cup of tea, can I come and see you, I can actually go days without seeing and interacting with people. And even if that wasn't the case, so even on the days that I go to the gym, and I see all my friends, because we were going to the same gym, or I do pop out for a coffee with a friend. Even in my work. Sometimes I'm really, really isolated. And for context, for those of you that don't know, I used to work in film PR. And I used to work in marketing. So I was always in offices and agencies. And I always see this get such a bad rap online that there's a massive narrative of like, quit the nine to five work for yourself. And I think one thing that the office culture is so so good for is having that bounce off that creative, I guess input from other people. When I worked on projects, so essentially just a really briefly summarise, the kind of thing I did was we would get a film come in, we would pitch for that film. So we'd have to do this like creative brief, where we'd come up with loads of ideas, campaign ideas, different things that we could do and execute, and then we would pitch it back to the client. And then when it came to actually executing the campaign, it would be a collaborative effort, it would be very rare that you were ever working on a campaign by yourself. We we'd all play to each other's strengths. We'd all support wherever it was needed. If we ever were like, Man, I'm a little stuck on this, can I have some input, there was always people to rally off of. And I really, really miss this. Now for context, I offer mentoring. And I offer different trainings and programmes and things like that. But also another huge part of my business is that I actually create the content for clients. I'm the content coordinator. So I like coordinate all the shoots, I'll write all the emails, I'll take some of the pictures, I'll do the copywriting. And I can't tell you how much harder this job feels even though it's everything I did for years and agency sitting here by myself with no one to bounce off of. I'm definitely not as creative as I could be right now. And I've been having this underlying sense a lot that I'm almost not living up to my creative potential. And I think a second piece within this within the mentoring creation side of my business, is that if I come up with an idea, it's very different when I'm working for the clients that I actually create for because we speak on ideas, we cement the dates and we want them done. I have to produce a certain amount of content each month. So I have these deadlines and accountability for it. But with my own stuff, I have these creative ideas come up. And quite often, they go nowhere.
Earlier in the year I had this huge creative download. I was so in flow, I felt so lit up about hosting a creative morning where I do exactly that I bring creatives together. This was more like a bit of a retreat morning so I designed a creative yoga flow meditation activities for us to do. Then I also thought Wow, there's so many creative business owners here in Cornwall, I would love to have like coffee mornings, where Brinker creators together maybe we will share or working on maybe there's things we want feedback on we want to be held accountability for and almost create this like group where we meet once a month or so. Something just what I've been craving. And I've had these ideas since January. And we're now in June. And they're not being actioned. And I think such a huge part of that is because I don't have the accountability. One thing I was speaking about with a client yesterday is, I only really have my friends to be like, Hey, that's a great idea. Like, I don't almost have colleagues to be like, Yeah, that's great. And then I don't have anyone to kind of bounce off how to make it happen, or to create the next steps with and you know, you don't need this. I've been operating my business for a few years now. And I've created loads and brought so many things to life. And quite often, I have done that completely by myself. But I want to share some acknowledgement here that that is actually quite hard to do. And it's hard to be doing constantly. Because when you reach those loans, those periods where you're kind of in that like no man's land, like nothing really feels like it's happening, you're not feeling overly creative. Or maybe like I say, you've got these ideas and things you want to do, but you're kind of going around in circles with it. It can feel really difficult to be running a business, it feels like everything is on you, you have to be really self reliant, self motivated, self inspired. And I don't believe humans operate like that. I think we're very much tribe based beings, I think we're used to being in community and collaborating. And so one thing I've been really sitting with is how I can invite more of that into my business. And obviously, this podcast is the first place. So when I first started, I had guests on every other week. And that was something that just kind of filtered out. I'm coming back to that I have some amazing guests lined up to speak on some really, really important topics within the industry. And I can't wait to share those. I'm also really thinking about holding Well, I'm not it's not even thinking I've been thinking about it for ages, like I said, holding some in person collaborations. Actually being in front of people, I held one of my 90 minute, quote unquote, calls the other day, the strategy sessions in person, and I loved it, I was bouncing with ideas and creativity and had this huge spark. So I definitely want to be doing more of that. And then also, I've been thinking about how I can create more of a community in the online world. I've spoken about this in other episodes is very much feeling like a bit of an echo chamber out there right now, like people are creating, people are putting stuff out there. But like there's definitely this missing piece of connection. I'm creating courses and resources. Didn't even that's wrong on that right now. But I also think such a huge element that I've not been putting enough of that energy into is just collaborating, like having people to share to bounce off to say, You know what, that's a really bloody good idea, I think you should do it. Because we can do all of that ourselves, like I said, but it's okay to need a little bit of that external validation, sometimes it's okay to want cheerleading, it's okay to want to be held accountable. Alright, there's this such huge narrative of you have to do everything alone, you have to completely validate yourself, you have to fulfil all of your own needs. And honestly, it really winds me up. Because all we've created is this culture of strong, independent women. And I have been a strong, independent woman for years. And as someone who has recently got into a relationship, I've really realised how that just does not serve. It does not serve at all, it creates this huge wall, this huge barrier to connection. What is so beautiful, and creates connection is to be able to say, You know what, I'd really love some help in this. Or you know what, this is a need that I have? And I'm not putting it on you that you have to fulfil it. But it would mean so much to me if there was some consideration of it. Or, you know, what, should we do this together? Right? Because I'm more than capable of doing it on my own. But how much more of a ritual experience would this be to do it together? And I think that is true for everything. I see so many incredible women that are largely running their business solo. And it's almost like if you're struggling with that it's a mindset issue or you're not good enough at business or you haven't got the skills that you need. And I just really feel passionate about the fact that that just isn't true. It is so so not true. I actually think there's so many elements about what Working alone working for yourself being freelance owning your own business, that's quite unnatural. And I guess what I realised this morning is, that is how I'm feeling right now. Like, there's quite a lot of places where in business, I'm just sticking, I'm just getting stuck. And this is usually my call to book in with a mentor. So that's exactly what I'm doing. And if you're resonating with this right now, and you're like, you know what I would just love to have someone to bounce ideas off of, I would love to have someone that can help me create the action plan, and help me be held accountable for that, like, I don't have to do it all by myself, please book him with a 90 minute call with me because I love holding that space for you. And I also love having it held for myself. But I just really feel strongly that collaboration connection is going to enhance our businesses so much, it's not going to hold us back, it doesn't mean that we're not good enough, it doesn't mean we can't do it on our own, it means we are going to be creating such a richer experience. So like I say, expect collaborations on this podcast, expect some new things coming out some new events, new workshops, some new ways that I can bring creators together and really create more of this community feel. I also have a much larger vision, which involves retreats and spaces and use of the spaces that I owns my beautiful apartment. And my van can't share too much of one on that right now purely because it only came to me about an hour ago. But I will be sharing the process as I go along. But yeah, I just really felt called to sit down and share. Be honest about how I've been feeling a little lonely, how I've been missing this sense of collaboration, and how I'm going to be moving forward, creating more of it. And maybe this inspires you to do the same. Maybe it validates how you've been experiencing about your business. And maybe it's just that call, like I say to book in, let's have a chat. Even if you just want to have a free 15 minute chat, just share how you're feeling right now. And just to riff on some things about your business because you realise that you haven't actually been doing that with anyone. This space is open. Like I say, I love to collaborate, I want to hear from you. And I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to this episode. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you would like to come and connect with some fellow conscious creators, you can find me at conscious creator co underscore and if you would like to work with me on a one to one or a group capacity to help you find that conscious creation that I know is sitting within you. Then you can book a free 15 minute call with me in the link in the show notes. I hope you have a consciously connected day. Thank you